The 6ths – The Bookish Mutant

Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 11/2/25

Posted on November 2, 2025November 2, 2025 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: In which I study the sudden occurrence of British men writing diss tracks about God in 1987.

Enjoy this week’s review!

SUNDAY SONGS: 11/2/25

“Decora” – Yo La Tengo

My Yo La Tengo knowledge is limited, considering how they theoretically line up with quite a bit of my music taste. They definitely seem to fit into my indie music sensibilities, and I even share a name with one of their songs, though they pronounce it differently than my name. (You win some, you lose some.) I do, however, know drummer and vocalist Georgia Hubley from the infectiously catchy and delightful 6ths track “Movies in My Head.” It’s a song about dreaming up fantastical scenarios and real life never measuring up, and Hubley’s airy vocals really do give it the feel like she’s never quite looking at the camera and never quite there, at least not fully. (Surely I don’t relate to that at all. Nah…)

That same dreamy quality of Hubley’s vocals blooms here, but in nearly the opposite environment. It feels like an adaptable houseplant to me: plant it in wildly different-shaped pots, and it still blooms just the same, and just as bright and healthy. I suppose that’s what you’d call versatility, but bear with me, I’m an English major. Let me have a metaphor or two…either way, this is just about the opposite end of the spectrum as Stephin Merritt’s sparkling indie pop. “Decora” is far noisier and grungier in the background, laden with crunching, distorted guitars that sound like the squealing of rusted machinery. It’s all rough edges and pockmarks, much like the collaged album cover of Electr-O-Pura. Yet Hubley’s voice drifts like a pastel balloon above a junkyard, sailing effortlessly through the clouds amidst the grime and squealing of the instrumentals. It’s beyond a perfect pairing—such disparate sounds meld together so seamlessly, and that’s magical to me.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Skyhunter – Marie Lu – “It’s not the first time you’ll take a fall/Act like you’ve never seen double before/We tie deep into the past/Take this chance with me ’cause it’s the last…”

“Saint Julian” – Julian Cope

British men in 1987, for whatever reason: “I absolutely need to write a diss track about God RIGHT THIS SECOND” (see also: the more well known “Dear God”)

So. Saint Julian! Severely underrated album, right? It just reeks of this jangly, proto-Britpop sound that I can’t get enough of. I’d already listened to about half of the album by virtue of it being on heavy rotation in my dad’s car throughout my childhood, but the familiarity of it didn’t dull the sheen at all. It’s very much a pop album, but it’s a clever, horny, dramatic, literate, and downright catchy one—”Eve’s Volcano” has been on repeat for me since June.

Past the first half, the album takes a turn from literately horny to just literate, but the sound is just as consistent. Where he was just singing about how you need to hold onto his special feature (wink wink), he applies the same instrumentals to his personal beef with God. Which…entirely understandable, and given the rest of Cope’s discography, is actually much more common for him than the former, given his penchant for philosophy and the ideas of Jungian psychoanalysis. Amidst almost medieval-sounding woodwinds and an otherwise ’80s band, he characterizes God as deliberately smug, a God that all but slapped him in the face when he tried to seek him out for solace: “‘I’ve been looking around this world I created/It’s going so well!’/I looked, I stared, I said, ‘I think I’ve lost you!'” Cope’s got a lot of snark to spare, but it’s all leveled in such a sly, clever way—he feels almost like a kind of trickster deity with a smirk aimed at the camera knowing that he’s had God himself. And like a lot of tricksters, the narrative ends in Cope getting imprisoned by God for mouthing off, not knowing that he’s given him even more proof that God’s not all that: “Remind me not to pray to you!”

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Agnes at the End of the World – Kelly McWilliams – “I stared into your face, the waves so deep and strong/Your fall from grace—a God so far gone/Remind me not to pray to you…”

“I Feel Free” (Cream cover) – David Bowie

Last week, I got into some David Bowie covers, so why not get into David Bowie covering other bands this week? A little switcheroo…

And talk about covers that sound eons away from the original! I didn’t even know it was a cover until a few days ago, but the original version by Cream from 1967 sounds worlds apart from Bowie’s interpretation in 1992. As Bowie tells it, in the early days of The Spiders from Mars, he and Mick Ronson would frequently cover this song—according to him, it didn’t sound very good, but I swear their ’70s sound would suit this cover perfectly. (It was also the final track that Bowie and Ronson recorded together before Ronson’s tragic, early death from cancer at age 46.) Instead of the peppy, very distinctly ’60s swagger of Cream, Bowie’s version of “I Feel Free” all but sounds like it was fast-tracked into the ’90s at startling speeds. It almost sounds more like the Pet Shop Boys than Bowie. It feels like his slicker, more commercial ’80s sound dialed up to a dizzying degree, complete with chrome-shininess abound, fluttering and frenetic saxophones, and soaring guitars, thanks to Ronson. And can we talk about his vocal range? Those low notes are just intoxicating.

There’s a very distinctly hippie flavor to Cream’s version, so it feels like a small wonder (or perhaps, a little wonder? Thank you, thank you, I’m here all night), and that feeling naturally lends itself to lyrics of carefree and ecstatic nature. Here, Bowie translates that feeling to something akin to cruising through the city in an expensive, silvery car, watching the city lights reflect off of the freshly-waxed doors, glimmering and luxurious. Just as easily as Bowie could shift personas and musical styles, he could also place that almost alchemical property onto any cover he touched, while still retaining the heart of the original—the core of the mouth percussion in the beginning remains fairly similar. But it just goes to show how deeply creative of a musician Bowie was, not just in interpreting his own work, but the work of others.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

How to Steal a Galaxy (Chaotic Orbits, #2) – Beth Revis – this would be right at home in a glitzy, high society gala…in the middle of space, of course!

“Harvest Moon” – Neil Young

Everybody seems to have this heartwarming, cinematic experience of listening to this song the first time. Me, on the other hand? Found it in an edit of Kermit and Miss Piggy…how could I not immediately download it after that?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMJcQu3yfFP/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Unironically got misty watching this, which should probably tell you exactly the kind of person I am, but I’m not ashamed of it.

I really don’t know a ton of Neil Young (though “Cinnamon Girl” is an obvious classic), but sometimes…yeah, I can’t resist a good ballad sometimes. There was just this warmth to it the instant I heard it, the kind of warmth you only get when leaning next to the fireplace as you watch the sun fade into the clouds at night. Those sporadic, plucked notes on the dobro feel like they’re drifting skyward; who’s to say if they’re fireflies or embers from a campfire, but either way, they glow to me. And despite the slightly corny music video (the dude sweeping to the beat in front of the restaurant nearly ruined the vibe, I’m sorry), “Harvest Moon” has this autumnal comfort to me, tinged with the last colors of the sunset and the warm of somebody in your arms.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

You Sexy Thing – Cat Rambo – look, I know the cover has the polar opposite vibe of this song, but stay with me here…

“You’re My Thrill” – Billie Holiday

This was one of those songs that was tucked into the absolute deepest, dustiest archives in my brain. I remember hearing it a lot in my parents’ cars when I was little—really little, there was always a big, bulky car seat in these hazy memories. I don’t know if I fabricated this memory, but I swear I remember hearing it as we passed down a run-down storefront somewhere along a highway in Denver. Maybe that strange, lingering feeling is why I can’t shake the feeling that “You’re My Thrill” has always come off a little bit eerie to me. I suppose it’s just the shifting standard of what’s considered the “right” way for a love song to sound and the more creeping tone of the song. With this instrumentation, Holiday’s crooning of “Where’s my will?” certainly feels a bit more like succumbing to something against her will than it does just being lovesick. And yet, still, still, it’s such a classic love song—it’s no wonder that Holiday’s legacy has become so solidly set in music history. Her voice is, without a doubt, one of the most captivating. It’s difficult for me to describe the exact cocktail of emotions that it evokes—enchantment, seduction, and in some cases, dread—but that’s the mark of an iconic vocalist.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Monsters We Defy – Leslye Penelope – I…whoops. The Venn diagram of when Billie Holiday had a career and the year this book is set is off by a few years, but I still feel like the jazz in this novel fits.

BONUS: it’s been a great week for indie rockers on late night TV. Here are some standouts:

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 5/11/25

Posted on May 11, 2025May 12, 2025 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! First off, a very happy Mother’s Day to my wonderful mom. She inspires me to be a better and more creative person every day, and I don’t think I’d be putting pen to paper (in the drawing and writing sense) nearly as much without her guidance and creative inspiration. So thank you for all your support, hard work, and love. I am so, so lucky. 🩵

School’s out, and it should be back to our scheduled programming soon enough. Of course, every time I take a break, I end up rambling tenfold to make up for the absence…apologies in advance. This is what happens when you let me get ahold of a new Car Seat Headrest album.

Since I’ve been in the finals doldrums for a bit, here are my graphics from the past few weeks:

4/27/25:

5/4/25:

This week: BRO DOESN’T EVEN REALIZE THIS IS RESPECTABLE STREET! 🫵😂

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/11/25

“Reality” – Car Seat Headrest

The more I think about The Scholars, the more I realize that this is the extreme of Car Seat Headrest’s qualities. Will Toledo has always been a scholar, and a deeply self-indulgent one. I don’t mean that derogatorily at all—his songs are just packed to the gills with references: often Biblical and also encompassing musical and literary greats. Although his life is still interwoven within the narrative (“Is it you or the sickness that’s talking?” on “The Catastrophe [Good Luck With That, Man]”), The Scholars is a veritable library in and of itself.

Not only are the usual suspects of Biblical references and allusions to music and literature, and Toledo’s past work are there, but The Scholars is Car Seat Headrest’s furry rock opera, an omniscient epic taking place at the fictional Parnassus University. There’s a full summary of it in a libretto that’s only available if you buy the vinyl, but thanks to the saints at Genius who, I’ve been able to piece together some of the narrative; it consists of vibrant characters coming out of the closet to their parents, participating in various subcultures around the college, a rival clown college, and a band of punk troubadours. All this culminates in [checks notes] the Dean of Parnassus University getting poisoned after the students from the rival clown college invade. It’s a trip…but I wish it was more readily available! When I say that The Scholars is self-indulgent, I love it in the sense that Will Toledo has created such an inventive, sprawling world between the notes of this album, and that he’s let his ambition run wild, in terms of the scale of the story and the prog sensibilities of the album. He clearly appreciates the value of letting people solve riddles and puzzles, but he’s left hardly any clues to piece together the narrative if we don’t have the libretto. I’d just like it to be more accessible—not in the sense of being more “listener friendly,” but in the sense that I want to actually be able to access the story. There’s clearly so many layers to The Scholars, and I’m dying to know more of the nuance.

That being said, even if you don’t know the story of the Rise and Fall of CCF and the Clowns from Parnassus University, The Scholars is a treat. For the first half, I was almost duped into thinking that the band had almost dipped back into Teens of Denial territory, which was twofold. On the one hand, Teens of Denial has a deeply special place in my heart, a staple of my fourteen-year-old girlhood and one of my favorite albums of all time. After the missteps of Making a Door Less Open, The Scholars is a return to form in some ways. As good as the first half was, I was afraid that it was too much so—even with the rock opera behind it, songs like “Equals” did rather feel like the same stories of drugs and regret that populating Teens of Denial. Yet after “Gethsemane,” “Reality” takes a turn into the more sprawling—and always fascinating. Trading off vocals between Toledo and Ethan Ives, it plunges into pure, 21st-century rock opera, complete with the avalanche of drama and pounding guitars that comes in at around the five-minute mark. I swear that some of the chord progressions remind me of “Cosmic Hero,” another one of my favorite epics from the band, but it’s painted into an unending landscape. Through all eleven minutes, I get the feeling of the culmination of all of the story’s events before the climax—it’s a drawn-out feeling, but one of certainty: they can’t escape what they’ve made, and they must move forward with acceptance of their fate; the whispered utterance of “no stage left” feels like an admittance that they can’t see what they’ve done, but there’s no escape from the consequences: they can’t see the audience. I’m circling back to self-indulgence, but the term sounds so negative: this just feels like Toledo unleashing the multitude of narratives within him. Is it easy to sit down and listen to songs that are nearly 20 minutes long? No, even for me. Yet as esoteric as it is, “Reality,” and this album, is worth your while, if you’ve got the time to set aside. Bottom line: be self-indulgent with your art. It doesn’t matter if there’s a small audience or no audience—you create what you think the world is missing, and the right people will find it.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Scholars 28-page libretto, only available when you purchase the vinyl – not trying to be snarky about it, genuinely. But heck, it’s pretty much a play in and of itself, complete with stage directions in the liner notes.

“Respectable Street” – XTC

This has to be the first Britpop song.

It’s long been accepted that XTC helped mold the Britpop movement as we know it—in fact, he almost had a direct hand in it, as he was Blur’s first choice to produce Modern Life is Rubbish; he produced a handful of the original mixes before departing from the project. But XTC made Britpop 12 years earlier. As much as I adore Blur’s sound and lyrical style from Modern Life up until about The Great Escape, hearing “Respectable Street” makes me realize exactly where they were coming in. I wouldn’t go so far to call some of it a rip-off…well, I almost would. I love Blur too much for that. Blur did develop their own style within this method, but at first, their claim to fame was largely due to songs like these. Not only does this song take a microscope to the arbitrary hypocrisies littering an uptight, quintessentially British neighborhood, but Andy Partridge has the vocal swagger to carry it all. Damon Albarn had the looks, but the line delivery is all Partridge, full of snark and with a cheeky wink as he lays out all of the double standards and not-so-well-kept secrets: “Sunday church and they look fetching/Saturday night saw him retching over our fence.” Of course, almost half of the jabs got butchered by the radio edit (“Now they talk about abortion” was replaced with “absorption,” which makes no sense, but…not a whole lot sounds like abortion, I guess?), but no amount of censorship would dull Partridge’s signature, acerbic style. Piled on with in-your-face production and the quick strikes of guitars, and you’ve got a song that inspired a generation—and hasn’t gotten the least bit old.

Also, about the promo above: I just know that set sounded heinous…I’m gonna go out on a limb and say, however talented all these guys are, that most of them did not know how to play cellos or violins. Definitely the point. Still, it must’ve sounded like middle school band practice in there…

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Mrs. Caliban – Rachel Ingalls – nothin’ like an escaped frog creature to spice up your respectable street, eh?

“Puerto Rico Way” – The 6ths

Stephin Merritt’s writing continues to be something to behold. Even though Mark Robinson (of Unrest fame) is at the vocal helm here, this is one of the 6th’s songs that’s most indicative of Merritt’s ability to not just set a scene, but make something so objectively seedy and nasty-sounding into the most cheerful, sun-bleached indie pop you’ve ever heard. Take the first few lines:

“The sun pissing in the streets/Of some hungover place/Dances with two left feet upon her face/But soft! She is fast asleep/Beneath her mosquitoes/You would never want to know what she knows…”

First off, the imagery of the sun “pissing in the street” is a stroke of genius, evoking the lazy way that sunlight bends and dapples along the subject’s face—something so objectively beautiful turned wayward and gross, an effect that’s stacked once the drunkenness is emphasized by it “dancing with two left feet.” The environment in “Puerto Rico Way” is so bloated with alcohol and oppressive heat, but it carries itself like all of Merritt’s indie pop songs—with more confidence than it should have, given the disappointing, warmed-over love he often writes about. On the track list, it rides the high of “Here in My Heart,” which could add to the cheeriness, but this track carves out a slice of hope, even if Martina doesn’t accept the narrator’s dance, in this “hungover place.” (The drunk, free-spirited, redheaded Martina does read like a manic pixie dream girl, so maybe it wasn’t meant to be after all. Martina’s so crazzzzzzzy! Love her!!!) The admission that “Oh love, it would’ve been ideal” implies that no, she didn’t, but that indie pop-timism (I’ll see myself out) creates a wrapped towel of sunburnt nostalgia, a photograph bleached in the sun, of a fleeting dance and a fleeting girl.

…AND A BOOK GO WITH IT:

The Monstrous Misses Mai – Van Hoang – “She’s drunk every single day/She’s young most of the time/She’s spent all of the rent on her decline…”

“Sheela-Na-Gig” – PJ Harvey

It’s always fascinating to look at songs that seem ostensibly quite feminist, but had none of that intention behind them. Take “Army of Me,” a song that I’ve always interpreted as being about feminine resistance, but was more about Björk trying to get her lazy brother to get up and do something with his life. The lyrics are quite self-empowered, easily interpreted as women breaking free from male-ordered subservience. The feminist leanings are there, but it’s only a sliver of the truth. Do I still feel empowered when I listen to it? Of course. But it’s not the whole story.

The same is true of “Sheela-Na-Gig.” The title references a type of Celtic fertility figure, an image of a laughing woman posing with her genitalia bared outwards. As such, the narrator goes through a sort of comedy of errors as she gets rejected over and over after flaunting her sexual qualities to no avail (“Look at these/my childbearing hips”). It’s easy to take it as a kind of internalizing what men want in women, exhibiting it, and then being turned away when it’s not to their standards; there’s an element of slut-shaming in the male figures not wanting the narrator because she’s “unclean.” The chorus of “Gonna wash that man right outta my hair” (interpolated from South Pacific) is empowered, especially after being kicked to the curb so many times by judgmental men. But PJ Harvey never intended it to be feminist song: as she told Melody Maker in 1992, “I wanted that sense of humour in the song…being able to laugh at yourself in relationships. There’s some anger there but, for me, it’s a funny song. I wasn’t intending it to be a feminist song or anything. I wanted it to have several sides.” And there is something funny about that—if you’ve been rejected with all of the repetition and swiftness of Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff, all you can do is look back and laugh.

It is a sort of death of the author situation; “Sheela-Na-Gig” hasn’t necessarily been lauded as some feminist anthem (and Harvey said in the same interview above that she didn’t want to be “lumped in” with more forwardly feminist bands), but even a quick glance at any reviews of the song shows that’s how many people tend to take it. In the context of PJ Harvey’s other songs, which are incontestably about misogyny and her struggles as a woman in a male-dominated industry (and world) (see: “50ft Queenie”), “Sheela-Na-Gig” seems to fit into that puzzle. I don’t want to wave that over people’s heads like they interpreted it incorrectly, either—it’s not like I got the aspect on my first listen. (I credit that to Trash Theory.) Personally, I didn’t think all of it was necessarily funny at first, although being as Gen Z as I am, I’ve only heard the phrase “childbearing hips” used sarcastically, so I took that as such. After going through literary theory, I’ve definitely been on the fence-sitting side as far as whether or not to go full death-of-the-author on any given song; the reader’s interpretation does shape the work, but I find it foolish to take it without considering the author’s intent. With “Sheela-Na-Gig,” I think there’s a lot that can be empowering, but what may be most empowering to me is finding the humor in being a woman. The semi-autobiographical narrator swings and misses repeatedly, but doesn’t let any judgement get under her skin. All of the ferocious power chords signal that she’s ready to dust herself off and try again. In the present moment, the narrator hasn’t yet learned, but the fact that PJ Harvey has looked back and learned herself seems more the point to me: having the self-awareness to feel bad for your past self, but be able to laugh at their mistakes. There’s power in being able to look back and laugh instead of wallow in sorrow—when you’re a woman, it’s all you can do sometimes. It may not necessarily be feminist, but it sure is a part of life.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Shit Cassandra Saw – Gwen E. Kirby – chronicling the varied experiences of women with wry humor—and honesty.

“Ate the Moon” – Tunde Adebimpe

It’s been almost a month since Thee Black Boltz came out, and the question remains: is this enough to sate us through the dreaded TV on the Radio drought? For the most part, I’d say yes—but it’s a separate, branching effort. Though it proves that Tunde Adebimpe was the beating heart of the band, he’s more than formidable on his own, minus Dave Sitek’s production and piled on with more synths. Though it’s not without its misses, Thee Black Boltz feels like Adebimpe stretching his fingers out in all different directions, but never stretching them beyond what makes me come back to TV on the Radio so often.

With a central theme of overwhelm during times of crisis and searching for light—creativity—amidst the choking smog, Adebimpe turns to synths and more danceable beats (see: “Somebody New,” a bolder, dancier gamble that mostly paid off in spite of the autotune) in order to pull through. “Ate the Moon” is about that overwhelm, if the title doesn’t already clue you in. Swallowed by anxious spiraling and visions of horror, the narrator scrambles for answers, but finds only regret: an echoing, childlike voice proclaims after the “the man who ate the moon” chorus that “and he choked, of course, because he bit off more than he could chew. Such a dummy!” “Dummy” echoes and is pitched down as it fades out, distorted into a trickster baring a triumphant, toothy grin as it disappears into the darkness like the Cheshire Cat. “Ate the Moon” certainly has some of what I think the albums pitfalls are: the lyricism is on the simpler, more obvious side. Not inherently a drawback, but after something as rawly and artfully written as “Tonight,” it feels cheap for him to rhyme “fire” and “desire” for the millionth time. It’s like Jeff Tweedy using someone being “cool enough to be ice cream” as a metaphor after being such an unparalleled poet otherwise. But like “Ice Cream,” it’s easy to love “Ate the Moon.” With the instant hit of Adebimpe’s boxing gloved punch of a voice and the synths and guitars that have been sewn into an electronic gestalt, it’s one of the most unique songs on the album, an adrenaline-pumped trip into the downward spiral of autonomy-less fear.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Death of the Author – Nnedi Okorafor – “Seems I was iII-prepared/For the fall that finds me here/Sad extremes running through my head/Knocked my blues into the red…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 4/20/25

Posted on April 20, 2025 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles, and happy Easter for those celebrating! 🐣 I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: stories from concerts, songs I heard before concerts, and songs that enticed me because of a cat on the album cover.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 4/20/25

“DOA” – St. Vincent

I’ve got a confession to make. As die-hard of a St. Vincent fan as I am, it took me some time to warm up to this song. I never hated it, but it wasn’t an instant favorite. I haven’t seen Death of a Unicorn yet (though the trailer intrigued me…), but something that always bothers me about songs made for movies and TV is when they obliquely reference either the plot points of the movie or how the characters are feeling. Hot take, but it’s part of why I didn’t care for the original soundtrack of Arcane—it basically did that for most of the character’s conflicts and arcs. (That, and it’s a matter of my music taste. Don’t let that deter you from watching Arcane though, it’s a breathtaking show! Having Im*gine Dr*gons do the theme song was just the worst possible decision they could’ve made. Just skip the intro.) You can make a song subtly extrapolating on a movie’s themes and have it fit naturally! (See: “Strange Love,” “Sticks & Stones”) Hell, she’s done it before with the original songs for her concert-film-turned-thriller The Nowhere Inn! Granted, I haven’t seen the movie, but opening the song with “Right as I had stopped believing in miracles/In comes a unicorn right in front of me” is…right there. So is the unicorn, I guess.

From then on out, “DOA” easily saves itself. It’s an absolute ’80s freakout from start to finish. The synths are so dense and bubbly that St. Vincent’s voice easily drowns in them—it’s like they’re the main vocal, and that kind of chaos, especially towards the latter half, is what makes the song so rich. “DOA” leads me to believe that somewhere, there’s a better, kinder alternate universe where MASSEDUCTION sounded more like this. It strikes the balance that album never got, with lightning-quick synth palpitations duel with Annie Clark’s classic, punchy guitar breakdowns. Piercing yelps cut through the dense, purple fog shrouding the song—again, I haven’t seen Death of a Unicorn, but it certainly brings to mind what I might feel if I was being pursued through the woods by a dubiously carnivorous unicorn. Given the film’s purported balance of campy concepts and dark execution, “DOA” is the perfect merging of the two aesthetics.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Catherine House – Elisabeth Thomas – a similarly out-of-time feel, as well as dabbling with strange, magical substances.

“Skully” – Jawdropped

No way, I’d never listen to a band just because I saw a picture of them where one member had a Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space shirt. Me? Nah, never. I’m a woman of taste…it was the album cover and the shirt that convinced me to at least listen.

I heard of Jawdropped by way of Stereogum; they reviewed the first singles off of their forthcoming debut (!!) EP, Just Fantasy, and I figured I might as well give it a go. Thankfully, they’ve got more to them than just a cute sphinx on their album cover and one guy with a Spiritualized shirt! I keep coming back to “Skully,” the opening track, which is about as propulsive as an opening track can get. It’s truly one of those songs where they’ve mastered how to make guitars cascade down like an avalanche on the first go, which is something not every band can say for themselves—especially not on a debut EP. Between the instrumental chaos of the chorus, they ease the verse into calm, a beast of burden tugged out of a sprint, in order to let the harmonies of Roman Zangari and Kyra Morling take the spotlight. But it’s that colossal cascade that makes “Skully” so excited; they don’t strike me as particularly similar to Spiritualized (this may be a bit too loud for shoegaze), but Jawdropped has a similar quality of encasing the listener in a fizzling, crackling bubble of sound. For all of 2:48, you’re cocooned on a moment’s notice—and it’s a cocoon worth revisiting time after time.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Ones We’re Meant to Find – Joan He – “I wait for you like a dog/Anxiously pacing/But you’re here when things fall apart/It’s just your nature/ We’re always stuck at the start…”

“Miss You” – The Rolling Stones

If I just put this song on in the background, I can ignore the cringy, “hip” lyric videos that The Rolling Stones started putting out after their newest album. I can’t stand that soulless, faux-graffiti/DIY aesthetic…I just can’t separate them from how painfully hard they’re trying to stay relevant to The Kids™️…

Anyways. We’ll pretend it’s 1978 and Official Lyric Videos For the Youth won’t be a thing for many decades to come. Like “Crooked Teeth,” “Miss You” was one of those songs where I’d have that opening riff (not the lyrics, this time) ping-ponging around in my head. It lingered in the fog of my childhood, but too far to discern anything clear. So thank you to the instagram for The Laughing Goat (and Rita) for making me remember it after however many years it was! And then, mere days afterwards, they played this song, amongst several other seventies rockers (see: “I Saw the Light”). “Miss You” was going to reach me either way. Some Girls seems to have come at the time when the Stones had cemented that sleaze was part of their brand, and subsequently became said sleaze. Despite “I guess I’m lying to myself/It’s just you and no one else,” it’s a song that lies squarely in the kind of horniness that defined them throughout the late ’60s and the ’70s. Even if he’s denying them, the way he croons the line about the “Puerto Rican girls that’s dying to meetchoo” betrays the partying and sex that later became as much a part of him as the press originally made them out to be when pinning them against the goody-two-shoes (citation needed) Beatles. There’s a Lou Reed-like drawl to the way he turns to a half-whisper as he speaks of stalking Central Park in the dead of night like some kind of werewolf, yet it couldn’t be more Jagger; the bluesy, “hoo hoo hoo-ooh hoo-ooh ooh” refrain almost becomes an abated, wolfish howl against this backdrop, roiling with angst.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev – Dawnie Walton – I try to refrain from talking about this book whenever I mention something from the ’70s, but this kind of bluesy rock fits in with the scene that it describes.

“Lindy-Lou” – The 6ths

Back to The 6ths after last week, I’m dipping my toes into Hyacinths and Thistles, Stephin Merritt’s 2000 follow-up to Wasp’s Nests, and slightly less of a tongue twister, if you say it slowly enough. (Maybe?) In contrast, there’s still some of the same synth-pop love songs, other than…the last track being nearly a half-hour long? Not sure if I know what’s going on there, and as much as I love Merritt, I’m not sure I want to know. In contrast to the ’90s indie-rock guest list, we’ve got everybody from Melanie (sadly, kind of a miss) to Gary Numan (wild pick, but great)—Merritt had his feelers out everywhere, to varying degrees of success. From the few songs I’ve sampled, “Lindy-Lou” was one of the undoubted hits, sung by Miho Hatori, one of the founding members of Cibo Matto, but best known to me as the original voice of Noodle from Gorillaz. As with Anna Domino and Mary Timony for you, she lends her tender vocals to a song gleaming with dreamy-eyed innocence. Accompanied only by keyboard, this seems to stare wistfully from a balcony as the wind toys with its hair, Amelie-style. It’s never cloying in its sweetness, but it’s so soft and intimate, the musical equivalent of a sweatered shoulder to lean on.

BONUS: somehow, I had no idea this existed beforehand, which is crazy, considering how much Car Seat Headrest has been a part of my life…back in 2013, in the car seat headrest-recording days, Will Toledo covered this song!

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Infinity Particle – Wendy Xu – quiet, tender love between a student and a lonely android.

“Family and Genus” – Shakey Graves

I’ve now seen Shakey Graves…2.5 times. I don’t fully count the second time, as it was at a crowded festival and I had no way of seeing him, so my mom and I listened to him at a safe distance behind the wall of drunk people. I amended it this time by shouldering my way up to the front row for round 3, as Shakey Graves is touring for the tenth anniversary of And the War Came! Other than the two drunk people who tried to get me to give up my seat (one even offered me $100), this show fully made up for not being able to see him last time. Shakey Graves, seen unobstructed for the first time since 2023!

What struck me at this show in particular was how genuine he is as a songwriter. So many artists in the folk and country-adjacent genre put on this kind of persona of being a wanderer with no permanent home, forever married to the road and dismissive of being bound to any one location. Alejandro Rose-Garcia has fully leaned into this persona (see: “Built to Roam”). Yet he’s the only one I’ve seen who makes it genuine. He’s roamed his fair share, but he’s never dismissive of the journey or the people who helped him along the way. Throughout the show, he paid tribute to friends and enemies throughout his life, his wife and newborn daughter, and for “Family and Genus,” raised a toast to family and friends that make the roaming easier—and more interesting. He’s a troubadour storyteller, but he never tells a lie. I keep coming back to how genius “Family and Genus” is—even as one of his most popular songs (I’m sure the Elementary TV spot helped), the craft is so intricate and lovingly stitched—just as the relationships he penned this as an ode to. Where the studio version’s “ohs” on the chorus sound like a choir of trickster ghosts, he imbues every raw ounce of love into them, turning it into a raucous crowd-pleaser that makes you feel that family, the sinew and atoms binding us together. And his rapid-fire fingerpicking on his guitar never ceases to amaze me—the fact that Rose-Garcia has barely gotten his flowers as the masterful guitarist that he is remains a disservice to his ingenuity. Hearing the echo of hundreds of voices around me, a handful I have the treasure and pleasure of calling family (minus said obnoxious drunk people), and countless others that I’ve never seen again after that night, solidified his statement of purpose.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Hammajang Luck – Makana Yamamoto – “If I ever wander on by/Could, could you/Flag me down and beg me to/Drop what I’m doing and sit beside you?”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 4/13/25

Posted on April 13, 2025 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: your yearly dose of “Madeline blubbering about the unknowable beauty of the universe and also Björk (in no particular order.”

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 4/13/25

“Cosmogony” – Björk

Not to be dramatic or anything, but I am currently writing this through tears. Every time I pull up the live version of this from the Biophilia concert film, I start crying. Damn you, Björk, could you not carve out the softest, tenderest bits of my soul with a melon baller for once?

Maybe I am the soft, snowflake humanities major that Trump wants to extract from higher education, but I find I understand science best when you bring out its inherently human qualities. We went wrong when we perpetuated the stereotype of the sciences, and scientists by extension, as cold and removed from emotion, because to separate the two is to deny the connectivity of nature, of the universe, and of the particles that quite literally make up all of us. (Which is why SciAll is doing incredible work to humanize the field, and even better that my awesome brother is making content for them!! Shameless Todd family plug, now back to your scheduled program.) Sure, I do believe the stereotype whenever I pass by the absolute brutalist hellscape that is my college’s engineering building, but that isn’t representative of all of STEM. I’ve never gotten physics. I’ve never fully understood it, only bits and pieces. But the other day, I read a great book called Uncommon Measure, a memoir about time and music, which likened quantum entanglement—the way that particles just know how others around them will move—to falling in love with her husband while they learned to dance Argentinian tango in college, and trusting her body to remember the steps and the movements of her partner. Do I understand quantum entanglement any more? Slightly, but I’d still fail a course on it. But I’m on my way, because of that emotion. The moment we lose that connection between ourselves and the very makeup of our universe, we forget ourselves. Quite literally, ourselves.

Now that I’ve finished Sonic Symbolism, my Sunday Songs have admittedly become months of Björk worship in a trenchcoat, but getting this nuanced view on her music-making process has seriously invigorated me. I’ve yet to fully listen to Biophilia, but it’s high on my list. The album was conceived along with an app that aimed to teach children about music through concepts of science; for instance, chords and learning which chords work best with each other is demonstrated by a visualization of tectonic plates. And if that’s not enough, David Attenborough, THE MAN HIMSELF, recorded an intro for the app, which was also featured on the Biophilia tour. Though the app is sadly defunct, it remains a critical piece of Björk’s creative legacy, as well as a tool that was specifically shown to benefit neurodivergent children in learning these concepts. In the grand scheme of things, “Cosmogony” was the menu that held the rest of the app together, a screen where you could navigate to different parts of Björk’s simulated universe. (And even if that didn’t exist, the aesthetic language of the album, with Björk’s voluminous wig that’s the color of oxidizing copper.)

That fusion of the arts and sciences, as well as the inherent humanism that Björk brings to her craft, is what makes “Cosmogony” so special; the song details three creation myths from around the world (Miwok Native American, Sanskrit, and Aboriginal Australian), and she adds the Big Bang theory, which she jokingly referred to as “a creation myth that is 100 years old,” but pointed out that “all creation myths at the time of their making were science.” The song begins with a kind of transcendental choir that rises in pitch, mimicking the motion of eyes searching the stars. It’s the only music that has ever captured the feeling I often felt while taking an astronomy class last year. As I stared up at the planetarium, watching as simulations of the known universe expanded outward ad infinitum, I had this bizarre, incomparable cocktail of emotions—fear, wonder, and somehow, comfort. It’s impossible to feel a single emotion at the revelation that our universe is infinitely large and full of places we cannot even begin to reach or imagine, is it? Space is a cold, unwelcome vacuum, but it is fertile with endless possibility. And that’s where Björk punches me in the gut every time, dredging out the wonder, comfort, and ecstasy of being surrounded by billions upon trillions of stars and planets: “Heaven, heaven’s bodies/Whirl around me/Dance eternal.” I’d say somebody hold me, but I am being held. All of us are, by the arms of the universe.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Search for WondLa – Tony DiTerlizzi – I can easily imagine this as Eva Nine sees the Rings of Orbona for the first time, coming to terms with her own clashing creation myths.

“Crooked Teeth” – Death Cab for Cutie

Bring back those stop-motion, collaged indie rock music videos from the 2000’s! We lost something when that trend went away. They’re all so inventive and fun, and they all have that token darkly funny moment before going right back to silly little cutouts of floating astronauts and whatnot. (See also: “Can You Feel It?”)

Song lyric of the week, unofficially: “You’re so cute when you’re slurring your speech/But they’re closing the bar and they want us to leave.” This song is an absolute indie hit, and it deserves that status: a three and a half minute-long pocket of sad white boys, clever lyrics, and lovely harmonies. That’s probably why I found myself occasionally remembering the chorus of “‘Cause you can’t find nothing at all” every few years and forgetting the rest of the song. Shame that I forgot the rest, really, because that’s not even the catchiest bit. Admittedly, I find the “I’m a war between head versus heart” bridge rather corny compared to some of the more poetic bits of this song, but that’s because of how descriptive every line is. Ben Gibbard really knows how to make every line count, from the lyricism down to the precise inflection of each word. The way his voice creeps through the notes makes the expression “turn of phrase” make sense—every sentences seems to twist like vines. All of it becomes “the home in my heart” built with rotten wood that leads into the first chorus; much like the collection of landmarks that Gibbard describes, it’s a blurred, drunken stumble through a mutually destructive relationship that keeps losing its water, no matter how many strips of tape you put over the holes in the kiddie pool. Yet all of it is irresistible, as is the last dregs of romance that have drained out of whatever hot mess Gibbard is chronicling.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Vicious – V.E. Schwab – “‘Cause I built you a home in my heart/With rotten wood, and it decayed from the start/’Cause you can’t find nothing at all/If there was nothing there all along…”

“I Saw the Light” – Todd Rundgren

There’s a sliding scale of what degree of early ’70s that I enjoy. On the one end, you’ve got glam rock: your Bowies, Bolans, Brian (Eno)s, etc. It all depends on that warm guitar tone. By the time you get here, you’ve got the guitar tone, but then you’ve inched into the same breath as Steely Dan, and…okay, that might be where I draw the line. (Admittedly, “Peg” is better than it should be.) That’s about when you get into that yacht-rock kind of cheese that I can’t quite stand. This one Todd Rundgren song, however…safe. Can’t deny how catchy it is, god! Another delightful tidbit of the ’70s I tend to enjoy is the pianos—I’m not sure if it’s the specific kind of piano or just the sound quality, but there’s something so charming about that tinny kind of piano that’s punctuates the background. Each bend Rundgren hits on the guitar strings feels like a sway of the hip, a twist of the leg striding across the dancefloor. Sure, he specifically meant for it to be a hit and not much else (and apparently cranked it out in 20 minutes while addicted to Ritalin), but it works perfectly as such. “I Saw the Light” has a joyful groove that’s been undeniable for 50+ decades, but exists in amber as nothing but 1972: smooth, romantic, and oh so bright in that guitar tone.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Seven Devils – Laura Lam and Elizabeth May – songs with lyrics that are on the…more generic side (sorry, Todd) don’t give me as much rope, so it’s mood I’m going off of for this one, a messy, romantic space opera.

“CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)” – Car Seat Headrest

Car Seat Headrest is back, and they’re making obscenely long songs again!! Nature is healing!! (And apparently, these aren’t even the longest? The second to last track is purportedly 19 MINUTES LONG? “Famous Prophets (Stars)” has some competition…) So is Will Toledo, evidently—I’m so glad he and the band are taking it slowly on this tour (which I am SO elated to have tickets for), but I’m glad that he’s gotten to a place with his long COVID that he can make some more angsty masterpieces.

It really does seem like The Scholars will be some of Car Seat Headrest’s boldest work to date. Toledo conceived of this album as a rock opera, inspired by the likes of Tommy and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, centered around the fictional Parnassus University. Each song centers around a student; the excellent, nearly 11-minute long epic of a single, “Gethsemane,” for instance, follows Rosa, a medical student who dabbles in necromancy and discovers that she can absorb the pain of others. Aside from said Gethsemane, Toledo also said that he was inspired by his own journey into Buddhist practices while he dealt with long COVID and his lifelong, conflicting feelings surrounding his spirituality. It’s an incredibly ambitious cocktail of ideas and about as spacious as a university campus, but it seems like the pent-up work of five years of not releasing any new material and the flood of ideas that I’m sure came along with it.

If there’s one thing that Car Seat Headrest has perfected the art of, it’s making album intros. They’re all about giving you that antici……pation, but the payoff is even more rewarding than the almost cinematic buildup. Even on weaker albums such as 2020’s Making a Door Less Open, “Weightlifters” had a kind of thesis about the album’s musical motifs, and on the iconic Teens of Denial, “Fill in the Blank” sets the upbeat, angsty tone with ease. “CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)” reminded me immediately of “Vincent” and its echoing intro, but what follows is an explosive display of the band’s collective talent. Toledo, Ethan Ives, Seth Dalby, and Andrew Katz’s synchronicity creates a soundscape deserving of a sprawling rock opera, and Toledo’s poetic lyricism is befitting of Beolco, the playwright character this song is written from the perspective of. Long COVID couldn’t beat the healing salve that is Will Toledo’s voice, which simultaneously retains notes of his youth but has undeniably steadied and matured. “CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)” has threads of Teens of Denial all over the place (aforementioned “Vincent” similarities, and the horns reminded me of “Cosmic Hero”), but something about it has an inherently spacious vision beyond the storytelling—this is a whole universe that they’ve created, and I, for one, am elated to discover it. MY BODY IS READY.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Hell Followed With Us – Andrew Joseph White – “When I come down off this cross of mine/A hairsbreadth apart and as far as the sky/Then back on my spine, there was a line that my idols crossed that I could not cross/On the other side is love, and right here is loss…”

“Here In My Heart” – The 6ths

Another addition to artists who cannot stop cooking: Stephin Merritt. Not only does he have some impressive vocal range and an excellent body of work with The Magnetic Fields, he’s a part of several other side projects—one of which, The 6ths, where he barely even sang, but just did arrangements and lyrics, and had a whole host of amazing indie artists sing for him. Dean Wareham (“Falling Out of Love [With You]”), Chris Knox (“When I’m Out of Town”), Mary Timony (“All Dressed Up in Dreams”), and Mark Robinson (“Puerto Rico Way”) are just a handful of the guests on this album, Wasp’s Nests. (However, he did sing himself on the also fantastic “Aging Spinsters.”) All of them are folded into the lovelorn synth tapestry that Merritt has woven, and though the voices vary, all of it is so distinctly him. The love (or love-related) songs he pens are usually of the lost love variety, but “Here In My Heart” is about as pure as they get; even if the love in question is far away, the yearning spills out of the chorus like thousands of butterflies. Every electronic twinkle glows warmly with love, the kind that makes your chest light up like in Fantastic Mr. Fox, but the glow never feels fake—it’s an ecstatic, crush outpouring that never loses its sheen. Anna Domino’s voice, as twinkling and delicate as the synths, blends in as a shimmering blot of light in the constellation of this starry-eyed love song.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Sound of Stars – Alechia Dow – The lovesickness and synth textures fit with the hopeful joy of this novel.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Goodreads Monday

Goodreads Monday (8/23/21) – Every Sky a Grave

Posted on August 23, 2021 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Monday, bibliophiles!

Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme created by Lauren’s Page Turners. All you have to do to participate is pick a book from your Goodreads TBR, and explain why you want to read it.

I put this one on my TBR almost exactly a year ago, and it looks like a fascinating twist on your typical space opera! And if it’s described as being perfect for fans of Star Wars…well, I’ve been led astray by that line maybe one too many times, but I love Star Wars, so I don’t think I’ll stop any time soon.

Let’s begin, shall we?

GOODREADS MONDAY (8/23/21) – EVERY SKY A GRAVE by Jay Posey

Amazon.com: Every Sky a Grave: A Novel (1) (The Ascendance Series): 9781982107758: Posey, Jay: Books

Blurb from Goodreads:

HER WORD IS HER WEAPON.

Mankind has spread out and conquered the galaxy by mastering the fundamental language of the universe. With the right training, the right application of words, truth itself can be rearranged.
Language is literally power.

Peace reigns now. Order reigns.

For if a planet deviates too far from what the authorities plan, an agent is sent out to correct that. To quietly and with great skill, end that world.

One such agent is Elyth – a true believer.

But on a clandestine mission to stop an uprising before it can truly begin, Elyth comes to realise she hasn’t been told the whole truth herself. There’s so much she doesn’t know. How can there be people whose truth is different to that of the authorities?

Elyth’s faith in the powers that be is shaken just when she needs it most. While on her mission, a dark and unknown presence makes itself known at the edges of the galaxy – and it cannot be controlled, for nobody knows its name…

So why do I want to read this?

Beeple - Sci-Fi / Cyberpunk Art - Album on Imgur | Cyberpunk art, Cyberpunk aesthetic, Cyberpunk

Ooh, the fundamental language of the universe? I’m certainly interested.

All of us sci-fi readers have seen all sorts of intergalactic tyrannies come and go in literature, but I haven’t seen one quite like the one that Every Sky a Grave promises – I’m super interested to see where Posey takes the concept of this fundamental language of the universe and its reality bending powers, as well as the powers controlling it.

Also, Every Sky a Grave is such an eye-catching title! I bet it’s the kind where somewhere along the 75% mark, it’ll appear somewhere in a quote and I’ll have that “oh…OH! They did that! They did The Thing!™️” moment. Hey, it’s the little things in life.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Goodreads Monday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Book Review Tuesday, Books

Book Review Tuesday (1/19/21) – Zero Repeat Forever

Posted on January 19, 2021January 19, 2021 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles! (And hey, Trump is out of the White House tomorrow, so that’s certainly cause for celebration! Won’t to worry about my basic human rights being taken away for a while…[relieved sigh])

Anyway, I read this one in close to one sitting yesterday on my day off. I expected it to take me a few days to read (close to 500 pages long), but I gobbled it up at alarming speed. Zero Repeat Forever had been on my TBR for almost exactly two years, and I had no idea what was in store for me. A diverse dystopia that was all at once tense and tender!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Read Online Zero Repeat Forever (The Nahx Invasions #1) by Gabrielle Prendergast Book or Download in PDF - madison-elijah56746

Zero Repeat Forever (The Nahx Invasions, #1)–G.S. Prendergast

Raven and her friends were away at summer camp when a legion of heavily armored aliens invaded Earth, laying waste to cities and leaving almost no survivors. After one of the aliens–dubbed the Nahx–kills her boyfriend Tucker, her friends flee, eking out an existence in the Canadian wilderness.

Eighth, a member of the Nahx, has no name–only a rank. After his companion is killed by a human, he sets off on his own. An encounter with a young human leaves him questioning his mission to kill all humans in sight, and he makes it his quest to find her and bring her to safety.

Chance brings Eighth and Raven together, both separated from their friends and fending for themselves. They soon realize that their situation may not be so black and white–and that there may be a chance to turn the tides.

TW/CW: Graphic violence, descriptions of injury/sickness (fever, broken bones, etc.), racism, loss of loved ones, loss of parents (off page), substance abuse (smoking, drinking)

WOW. I didn’t even have any expectations for this one–I just picked it up because I needed some more sci-fi in my life. But Zero Repeat Forever was such a powerful novel–a tale of setting aside differences in the midst of division that threatens to split the world in two, and the relationships that define our lives.

First off, there’s some amazing diversity in this novel. Raven, our protagonist, is mixed race (half white/half Black–Black mother, white father, and she also had an Indigenous stepfather), and there’s several other POC characters present. As a mixed-race person, it always makes my heart so happy to see mixed-race characters starring prominently in their own stories. 💗

There’s also a gay couple that features in the first part of the novel, but the thing about them is a bit complicated–they’re the only explicitly LGBTQ+ characters in the novel, but they both end up getting killed, which would fall into the bury-your-gays trope. However, these characters weren’t harmfully stereotyped, and it really doesn’t seem like killing off the gay characters was intentional in a homophobic way. (Plus, by the end of the novel, most of the main characters are dead–we’re talking Fargo levels of main character deaths.) Even so, it didn’t sit completely right with me. Again, it didn’t seem intentional and it’s a small part of the novel, but I think it’s important to take that into account. (Most of the reason why I didn’t rate this one the full five stars–see my rating below.)

Zero Repeat Forever is a special kind of dystopia–sure, there’s plenty of dark and bleak material, but it manages to balance that with tenderness and hope, making a beautifully poetic kind of novel. One way that this novel really shone was in the portrayal of human emotion, and how different people deal with different things. Each character is distinct in dealing with the horrific subject matter, and the interactions between all the different personalities were executed in a refreshingly authentic way.

I especially loved the relationship between Eighth/August and Raven. Their dynamic did have an unusual tendency to be a bit mercurial (Raven’s feelings about him seemed to change at a startling frequency, but it makes sense to some degree), but at its heart, it was so poetic. Messy, but poignant and tender. It called to mind everything from The Iron Giant to The Shape of Water, and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t get a little bit choked up. I love those two.

And the cherry on top? EDGAR ALLAN POE REFERENCES, OF COURSE! Can it possibly get better than that? I think not.

All in all, a truly unique dystopia that yields the perfect balance of darkness and tender love. 4.75 stars, rounded up to 5!

Zero Repeat Forever is the first book in G.S. Prendergast’s Nahx Invasions duology, which ends with Cold Falling White. She is also the author of the Ella series (Audacious and Capricious) and the middle grade novel Pandas on the Eastside.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: January 11-17, 2021

Posted on January 17, 2021January 18, 2021 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

As I mentioned earlier, the beginning of the week was rather overwhelming, so I had to take a short break from posting so I could get my schoolwork done. But things are quieting down for the time being, so I have a bit more time to wind down.

I *accidentally* got a huge library haul last week (a bunch of my holds came in when I least expected them to), so I had a lot to read. It was definitely a little bit hit-or-miss, but I’m glad to say that some of my most anticipated releases lived up to the hype! I also have some books that I ordered with my gift card that should be ready soonish, and I can’t wait to read them…

I’ve also been steadily working away at editing my main sci-fi WIP, and I finished up my initial edits on Friday! From here, I’ll be doing a whole lot of tweaking for my outline and some other research, but in a few months’ time, I’ll be on my way to writing my second draft!

GIF the coen brothers - animated GIF on GIFER

Other than that, I finished up season 2 of The Mandalorian (*sniffles*), watched Barton Fink, and listened to a whole lot of Julien Baker. I’m also going to start WandaVision tonight with my family, and I’m SUPER excited! (I’ve always had a soft spot for the Vision…)